I want to donate to a charity where the money will go entirely to the person in need (e.g. cancer)

[LettuceBeFree]

I want to donate to a charity where the money will go almost entirely to the person in need - I'm especially wanting to donate to a cancer research, cancer care, etc. type charity.

My concern is that a lot of charities seem to use the donations they receive to line the pockets of millionaire senior management staff, CEOs etc. with only a small fraction actually going to those in need. I want to avoid "charities" like that.

Please let me know of some genuine charities (esp for cancer) that you know for sure don't do this.

If you want to have a direct impact, why not volunteer at a hospice?

Giving money to a particular person is likely to be the least effective way of supporting people with cancer.

If you go to Just Giving website, you can scroll and search for individual people raising funds for specific things or people. You can chose one or several and donate to them that way.

The only circumstances in which any charity would have "millionaire senior management" will be where the individuals concerned are millionaires for other reasons. Most charity staff are massively underpaid compared to what they could earn in the private sector.

Agree you can't run a charity on nothing but this one does great work an a small scale www.togetheragainstcancer.org.uk/

Check out acts435.org.uk

I manage a small health charity. I’m delighted you think I should do my job unpaid. Are you offering to pay my mortgage for me?

Mortgages and supermarkets aren't free just because you work for a charity. Unless you think scientists and nurses should be volunteers with a private income. Narrows the talent field a bit that does.

My shining star provides grants to children experiencing cancer and all 'staff' are volunteers

How do you measure 'what goes directly towards helping the cause?"

The scientist in a cancer charity is doing research that has an impact.
The person running the payroll is enabling the scientist to do that research.
Both people are helping the cause - but in different ways.

Whose salary is going towards helping the charity cause?

(I do have a vested interest - I work for a charity. I don't deal directly with the clients but without me, the people at the sharp end would find doing their job was a lot lot harder, if not impossible). I help make us deliver our services more efficiently so the donor's money is used more effectively)

Buy food and donate it directly to a food bank. Buy clothes and donate directly to clothing bank? I work for a charity and help people get benefits. Last year people with cancer in the area I work in are 3 million pounds better off because of the work out team did. But we do get paid.

Cost effective cancer research: www.icvi.org.uk

Buy food and cups of tea and pass them out to people sleeping in shop doorways (soaked to the skin) on your way to work? Volunteer for Crisis and be part of the team that supports homeless people? It often comes down to the degrees of separation from the issue you want to help resolve. Most fair minded people hate the idea of homelessness but equally often feel awkward about talking to a homeless person so give money to a charity that can help on their behalf. The food bank suggestion is a really good one. If cancer is what you'd like to target, then I can tell you that the best scientists in that field (e.g. stem cell researchers) need to be funded and often it's by the cancer research trust or similar paying for expensive equipment, wages, lab fees etc. - I'm my view this is money well spent.

A wonderful small charity based in Northern Ireland is run by volunteers to help children with blood disorders and cancer. "Angel Wishes" was set up in memory of 2 children the mummy lost. She runs the charity for them. No big overheads and loads of followers and frequent donations. The children benefit from gifts whilst under going treatment. The charity is hands on and gives the children a bit of happiness when they need it. I see other charities fundraising and never see anything given back to the children that needs it. Another couple of charities that helped my family were Clic Sargent and Cancer Fund for Children. Larger charities with overheads but delivering a vital service.

I work for a small charity. You do realise that we still need to pay our staff, contribute to their pensions, buy stationary and computer equipment etc? Or do you think that staff should work for free?

Such a shortsighted and frustrating attitude.

It can be really hard! I work with a large scale charity which has a smaller local charoty attatched to it. Recently someone complained that we spent X amount on fundraising via letters through local peoplea door in the local area. They believe its a waste. However for every pound in that campaign we got just under £3 back meaning the original donation was more than doubled (allowing us to build what we wanted to build)

We have a great deal of success when we ask for specific items eg blankets, and can get over run by them but really it would be much more efficient if rather than everyone going and buying a blanket (they come with tags often) that they gave us the money.

For example 100 people buy a 50p tin of food giving us 500 tins. If we had £50 in donations we could negotiate a big trade discount get more tins, and also reduce wastage (people will kindly buy us the wrong tins etc or ones less suited to our needs).

However people are warey about donating money so we often ask for items as we would rather that then nothing

OP

Have a look for 'charitable trusts' these do sometimes give money directly to families and individuals as do organisations like the Rotary club or St Vincent de Paul.

If you contact a local Rotary and tell them what you want to donate for they will be able to tell you what they do.

Also for care then your local hospice, the one my mum was in did a lot of work with 'hospice at home' and with families eg my dad went on a cooking course for men of a certain age who were going to be widowed.

As for research, that's tricky because there are costs for lab equipment, student stipends, salaries etc.

If you are in south London, consider about donating to Paul's Cancer Support Centre (physically in Wandsworth, but covers any/all south London boroughs). It doesn't have the profile or celeb endorsements of more well-known support centres, but does the same stuff on very low overheads.

www.pauls.org.uk

A good example is when i used to work for disaster relief. Take a sleeping bag, people would buy one, then come donate it and ask for it to be given to the cause.

We used to resell them as it was much more cost efficient to use the money however people hated the idea so we instead had to do this:
-have volunteers to sort donations
-somehow ship it to wherever it was going often including flights, baggage handling etc. This is very costly

• unload it at other end, drive it a great distance then employ people to distribute

All for a value argos sleeping bag, when actually all that expense would be much better spent buying a sleeping bag in country that is better suited to their needs eg the right tog (not to mention local jobs etc).

Think about it, if you wanted to give your niece who lives in australia a tshirt, would you buy one here (or find one in your waldrobe), ship it all the way over and ask her to pick it up at the airport? Or would you just give her £10 to spend at a local shop.

Its the same as when school kids go out to complete a school or whatever. By the time they've paid for their flights etc usually that would have paid for professionals to complete the job several times over but people dont like just giving money

I get what you mean Op. I would suggest giving to your local Hospice.

Also go fund me charges a fair percentage as an admin cost so thats definately not a way to avoid overheads

All charities have to pay staff wages and will have admin costs though

Not all, some of the smaller ones don't.

Just another thought OP

One of the few xmas gifts I buy is some make up to be given as presents to women in my local refuge.

I started because on Xmas someone started a 'best present' thread and someone said, "a set of dove soap and shower gel" and then went on to explain she was in a refuge.

You could ask your local hospice if there is anything like that you could do? Some nice cosmetics / hand lotion/ essential oils.I know when my mum was attending the day hospice she loved the hand massage and having her nails painted.

How do you expect a charity to be audited and meet regulations for free? Or to have public liability insurance and safeguarding procedures? Working phones and computers, heat lighting, premises? People who turn up and train, recruit, retain, support volunteers and cover for them when they don't turn up or have to take time off?

You can't run a charity of any size without some running costs and paid staff.

Our local Women's Aid and homeless shelters have Amazon wishlists.

Not all, some of the smaller ones don't.

If a charity has no paid staff, no website, no marketing materials, no branded t-shirts, no banners, no collecting buckets, none of the paraphernalia that charities need to raise money, then they're arguably not doing a good job of supporting their cause. It's possible they could still get a reasonable number of donations without any of those things, but how much more could they do with some investment?

A charity with no overheads is a charity not maximising it's potential. That's fine, they aren't obliged to. But I would personally choose to donate my money where it has more impact.